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Coming alive with music

IT HAS been described as the food of love (by Shakespeare) and as the magic beyond all magic (by J. K. Rowling). It is what Einstein would have pursued had he not become a physicist. It is the potion that has induced passion in rigid hearts and augmented lives. And presently, it is the elixir that has lifted my spirits to a realm where everything else, namely, the excess baggage of a mangled mind, has ceased to exist. Drenched to the tip of my hair in dulcet tunes, this has been the most exuberant and distinct vacation I have ever had.

When we planned a holiday with the primary agenda of attending a series of concerts for a week during the December music season in the South Indian city of Chennai, we were sceptical about how it would turn out to be. While we were buoyed by the novelty of our plan, we were also vaguely intimidated by the prospect of getting sickened by a surfeit of raga and rhythm. I mean, it is not like going around new places or adventure sporting or being in the company of a group of picnickers, you see.

Responses from people ranged from appreciation for the originality of the plan to utter surprise at our levels of perceived patience to sit through hours of nonstop music. But that’s the power of music, as we know it now. Between four and six hours of live music every day for a week hasn’t killed our appetite for it, as the bard suggested in Twelfth Night. If anything, it has only made us realise the magical influence that fine arts and its various forms can have on our overburdened mental faculties and their power to placate our pain.

Music had been an accompaniment to my life since my school days. However, at some point of time, as I grew and got into the tasks of adulthood, I stopped listening to music and began to feel it. I added new genres to my play list, and acquired new tastes. The ear could catch a delectable tune or reject a jarring note in a jiffy. While it routinely ran as a background to my domestic duties, I often took exclusive time to devote my heart and soul to it, putting away all work. I soaked up the poetry wherever I could follow the lyrics and melted in the melodious strains. It was almost like undergoing music therapy for the small, big, frivolous, grave concerns of the daily grind.

For all the love I profess, I must confess that I am no connoisseur who can wax eloquent on the theory of music. I have no formal training in singing, nor can I write an essay on the intricate aspects of do re me. To love books, you need to be literate, but to love music you only need a sensitivity that, according to me, is inherent in all of us. How else does one explain the power of a lilting lullaby on a baby or the soothing prayer call on the devout? The levels of liking may vary, based on one’s exposure, but it is impossible that one stays unmoved by the mellifluous effect of the sounds of music. It is hard for me to think that a human being can be left unstirred by melody.

There is something uniquely enchanting about music that brings tears to your eyes, summons memories, soothes the mind and transports you to a space where emptiness reigns. It was in these empty quarters shorn off all care and concern that I lived for a week, experiencing a bliss that can be next only to the blessed feeling of ultimate liberation. Sometimes, you just need to find newer ways of rediscovering the hidden joys of life.

Asha Iyer Kumar is a freelance journalist based in Dubai